


6 
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The Study of History 

By WALTER P. BECKWITH, Salem, Mass, 




The Study of History 



BY 

WALTER P. BECKWITH 

Principal of the State Normal 

School, Salem, Mass. 




Salem, Mass. 

llSelncomh ^ (Sauisjs, JOrintcrg 

1904 






LIBRftWV ot CONliR£SS 
Two Copies Recatved 

APR 4 1904 

I, Copyright £ntry 
CLASS "^ XXc. No 
" COPY 3 









Copyright 

1904 

By Walter P. Beckwith 



One Hundred CoriES Printed 



No. 



ma the compliments of the author, 



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THE STUDY OF HISTORY 



THE value of the study of history depends upon man's per- 
ception of and belief in what we speak of as the uniformity of 
nature, the existenceof the principle of causation as a perma- 
nent force, I he fact that like causes produce like effects. This gen- 
eralization includes the spiritual as well as the physical life. Its 
application is to the subjective as well as the objective phase of 
universal experience. It recognizes what Emerson calls the " one 
mind common to all individual men." The higher life is always 
conditioned upon the lower, so that the study of spiritual exper- 
ience loses much of its value unless it is based upon material 
conditions and physical phenomena. It must also recognize the 
fact that the human mind uses the body as its instrument and that 
so far as our actual experience goes, we have no knowledge of 
any other means by which it may express itself. The appreciation 
of this relationship is indispensable to a sound view of the pro- 
cesses of education, considered in the larger sense. Upon it also 
depends the development of all the activities that are rational and 
wise in so connecting the past with the future in our thought that 
the lessons of the former may produce their due effect and yield 
their due results in the life of the latter. Human life in the spirit- 
ual aspect is not less an evolution than in the physical. We must 
learn not merely to accept this fact in its formal sense but also to 
apply it in good faith and in full reality to the problems of life. 
There is no personal element in the government of the spirit- 
ual realm any more than in the physical world. What we call 
moral laws are no less fixed and unchangeable than those which 
we designate as physical. This is a necessity of the unity of the 

3 



4 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

divine order. It is not, then, the laws that are the result of evo- 
lution, but it is man's recognition of them that is progressive. 
The laws of the spiritual world have existed from the beginning, — 
if there was a beginning ; the principles of activity, of industry, of 
order, of righteousness have been " from everlasting " and they 
will continue " to everlasting ;" they are immutable, — not made 
for man and imposed upon him by arbitrary authority, but exist- 
ing in man, — a necessary and inseparable element, — consequent 
upon as well as consistent with the nature and organization of the 
universe. Man's recognition of the laws of spiritual life consti- 
tutes a revelation in no special and peculiar sense. He has made 
some progress in learning them and in adapting himself to them, 
as he has in the physical world, but the progress in the two fields 
is made in precisely the same manner and according to the same 
promptings of inquiry and aspiration. What we call revelation 
is simply a recognition of a process that has always had a genuine 
existence. The divine order is constantly expressing itself through 
the operation of its laws in both the spiritual and the physical 
worlds, and through man's growing understanding and appreciation 
of such expressions, we may most devoutly say that God is being 
revealed. 

It is with this fact in mind that one should attempt to 
approach the consideration of the study of history. If man today 
values this study at a higher estimate than did his predecessors, it 
is because he understands better than they did, that human nature, 
in its fundamental aspects, is unchangeable ; that the aspirations 
and ambitions which move great men, — so-called, — also move 
those of humbler endowment ; that the motives which govern great 
interests are identical with those which guide petty affairs ; that the 
history of a neighborhood is the history of a nation. The men 
who are selfish and grasping in the small life of a country town, or 
public-spirited and generous in their attitude towards the problems 
of a sparsely settled community would be petty or great in the 



TtlE STUDY OF HISTORY. § 

same way if they were called to rule the destinies of a great nation. 
The differences exist in degree only, not in kind. The man 
whose greatness or littleness becomes conspicuous is the same in 
his essential quality with him whose sweetness, — or bitterness, — 
is wasted on the desert air. 

If these things are so, we have full warrant for studying and 
heeding the lessons of experience. It may even come to pass 
that the limited lessons of a narrow experience may train one 
well for solving the problems of greatest moment. Sir Isaac 
Newton made the greatest discovery of many centuries from pon- 
dering over the fall of a little apple. 

In the light of such considerations, it is our purpose to con- 
sider the subject now presented to our attention. If it appears 
to be the fact that the discussion is colored or affected by the 
nature of our daily duties, perhaps no apology is necessary. The 
men who can discuss any matter without being influenced by the 
considerations springing from their own familiar and habitual 
thought are not so numerous that there can be many to criticise 
another for yielding to the temptation. And, besides, the teach- 
ers who would gain even an approximate understanding of the 
problems of education cannot fail soon to realize their far-reaching 
importance. The task of training a generation to take up the 
world's work is so momentous, its conseqences so far-reaching, and 
its methods and agencies so potent for good or for evil that it is not 
lightly to be estimated. The questions it raises are not all settled 
in the school room ; the answers it finally makes are given in every 
relation of human life. The different branches of knowledge to 
be selected for school work, the proportion in which they are to 
be used, and the methods and special aims to be adopted or 
encouraged in their employment, — these are not the least impor- 
tant of the special problems of the formal process of education. 
While such matters seem to be determined by teachers, it must be 
remembered that in reality every nation has such schools and such 



6 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

aims and methods of instruction as it desires. So whatever affects 
the estimate in which the intelligent people of any community 
hold any branch of knowledge must sooner or later find expression 
in the schools, and the effort to contribute to a right understand- 
ing of the value of the different branches is praiseworthy and 
desirable. 

All branches of knowledge may be estimated from at least 
two different points of view. For our present purpose we may 
characterize these as the conventional or practical and the educa- 
tional. We assume that the educated man is not merely an intelli- 
gent man. Education implies something more than and something 
different from mere intelligence. One may have a vast store of 
knowledge and of information and yet possess no sound claim as 
an "educated" man. James Russell Lowell once characterized 
Abraham Lincoln as the best educated man of his time. If edu- 
cation merely signified the possession of intelligence, the charac- 
terization would have been absurd. It is indeed through the 
acquisition of knowledge of some kind or degree that a man 
becomes educated, but the process is far more important than the 
material employed, and the least tangible of all the products is 
the greatest. The analogy between spiritual and physical growth 
is close enough to be useful. No one becomes an athlete merely 
by eating a certain number of pounds of good roast beef with the 
usual concomitants. The original endowment of organs is a fac- 
tor ; something depends upon the kinds of food selected ; much 
upon the training to which the candidate is subjected. Muscle 
and skill are the net result. So in the spiritual development, 
objects and subjects of knowledge play the part the food plays in 
the physical life, but the acquisition of knowledge, in the true 
view, is only a means to an end, and the power that comes as the 
result of the rational exercise of our mental faculties is the real 
end, the goal of the educative process. And power may be 
attained with a comparatively limited amount and variety of 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 7 

knowledge, provided it be wisely employed, as Lincoln and many 
others have fully exemplified. 

It seems to follow, therefore, that much knowledge, rated 
very high from the conventional stand-point, may have relatively 
little value in the development of intellectual abihty or power. 
The material to be employed in the formal educative process, — 
as in schools, usually possesses both these elements of value, but 
the proportion in which they are mingled often varies greatly. 
The schools may, perhaps, fairly be asked to concern themselves 
with some things chiefly for their conventional value, — like the 
spelling of English words or the tables of weights and measures, 
either of which does very little to develop genuine power, — sim- 
ply because, all things considered, it is desirable that children 
should have such things well within their command. It would, 
however, be a great misfortune to real education if such a standard 
should be universally or even very prominently apphed. 

On the other hand, purely educational material, — if there 
were such, — would put school-life out of touch with the other 
aspects of life. It would also be found probably deficient in those^ 
qualities which are effective in exciting and maintaining the 
interest, especially of young pupils, in their daily work. Thig 
result would follow from its deficiency in those individual and con- 
crete elements which are best adapted to appeal to the activities 
of children. 

Those who plan the work of the schools are bound to seek 
a due admixture of the conventional and the educational elements 
in the work which they select. There may be a preponderance 
of one or the other in each line of work separately considered ; 
but the general result should be the reasonable balance which 
has been mentioned. 

In history, — more, perhaps, than in most school work, — the 
desirable proportions of the two qualities may be found. But this 
will not be attained unless the study is planned and carried out 



8 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

in the right manner. For in history it is easy to magnify the one 
side or the other so that in given instances it often falls far short, 
on one side or the other, of its best possibilities. The greater 
danger, however, lies in the neglect of the educational value 
through exalting the other. This, too, is the error more likely to 
result, — especially when the work is done by inexperienced or 
superficially prepared teachers. These may not realize the fact 
that history is more than a mere chronicle of unrelated and dis- 
tinct events, each tagged with a date which, to the child, is purely 
arbitrary and meaningless. Such a teacher, either in arranging 
independently a plan of work, or even in carrying out a plan 
which has been framed with, greater wisdom, will seek. — almost 
unconsciously — such results as can he most easily tested by cer- 
tain kinds of examinations largely in vogue whose aim is to reduce 
to a scale of percents the results of the pupils' work. Such exam- 
inations are not wholly unknown even at the doors of the college, 
and they revel in a multiplicity of minute and trivial questions 
which, whether so intended or not, in fact train chiefly the lower 
and simpler forms of memory, dealing with dates, places, and other 
details which are really insignificant. The importance of mem- 
ory, — even of a good verbal memory, — need not be questioned. 
It is particularly prominent duringthe grammar school period, — the 
very time when history is first studied in anything approaching con- 
sistentand connected form. There is at that time serious danger that 
by such work so much importance may be attached to it that the 
child may become a victim of arrested 4evelopment, with a strong, 
if not unconquerable tendency to use it instead of being trained 
and habituated to the use of the reason and the imagination, — 
faculties which should be receiving much strenuous encourage- 
ment to an increasing employment. 

In the beginnings of the child's school life the study of his- 
tory, for its conventional value, rightly has a large place. That 
kind of work is adapted to the powers of the child in that period, 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 9 

when the senses are relativ^ely most active and reason has compar- 
atively little to do. It will then take the form of stories, — anec- 
dotes of great men, especially in their childhood, myths and 
legends, and accounts of separate instances of noble deeds and 
splendid virtues. It will be connected with the preparatory work 
in geography and will deal with the life of children in other times 
and in other lands. It will not be history, in any scientific and 
systematic sense, but it will present elements of history, which 
later may be expected to take their places in a more complete 
and systematic scheme. This knowledge will bear to history the 
same relation as concrete facts, early acquired, regarding plants, 
are later seen to bear to the science of botany, or as the facts of 
numbers are, by gradual transition, later understood as arithmetic. 
But this kind of historical study, suitable for the primary 
school period, becomes largely useless, — it may even be worse 
than useless, — if it is continued, differing only in amount, through- 
out the grammar school. It is, indeed, too much to expect that 
children in the grammar school should have what adults regard as 
a comprehensive view of history in general, or of the history of 
one country, or even of a single epoch. The later grammar school 
age is a period of transition, both physical and spiritual, and the 
child's experience with history should not differ materially from 
his experience with other branches of knowledge and in his phys- 
ical life. But the point is that the work in history must be 
adapted to the process of transition. Without neglecting what 
he has already acquired, close watch must constantly be kept on 
the possibiUties of his future. Memory gives us no new knowl- 
edge, — all that can be expected of it is that it retain what we 
have acquired through other faculties; — the reason and the imag- 
ination are dependent upqn it, but it must not be made their 
substitute or rival.' It is also to be kept in mind that the power 
of reasoning is not an additional faculty which comes into exis- 
tence, full fledged and omnipresent, at a certain fixed period. 



lO THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

Even the young child reasons, but reason is not his characteristic 
activity. The development of the power of reasoning must be 
gradual, but it must not be neglected ; it needs stimulating and 
directing, even more than sense-activity and memory ; if it is not 
properly stimulated and directed at the right time it is extremely 
likely to fall short of its appropriate growth, and when the period 
suitable to its growth in a marked degree is neglected, it is diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, later to supply the omission and make 
good the lost ground. 

The right growth of the reasoning power cannot be secured 
through the study of history for its conventional value. If the 
memory alone is relied upon, memory alone will be strengthened. 
The question, therefore, is a most important one, what features in 
the study are necessary in order to realize the educational value. 
Good instruction, at the period when the higher powers of the 
mind are coming into use and prominence in an increasing degree, 
always has for its goal the mastery of what is general and abstract, 
through a study of what is individual and concrete. History is 
no exception to the principle. It may readily be made to present 
problems for consideration and answer which call for the exercise of 
other faculties than the senses and memory, though these must ob- 
tain and preserve the materials for such work. It is a great mistake 
to suppose that only the mathematics have problems which call 
for original effort in their solution. The problems in all depart- 
ments must of course be carefully selected, and graded to the 
power which the pupils are capable of exerting. Some of them 
are connected closely with other branches of school work and thus 
are valuable for other reasons than their merely historical signifi- 
cance. It is not unreasonable to require pupils in the upper 
grammar grades, and in any of the high school classes, to grapple 
profitably and with a reasonable degree of success, with some or 
all of those which will now be suggested. 

For instance, compare the Salem of today with the Salem 



THE STUDY OF HISTOBY, It 

which Washington saw when he visited this city. Comparison is 
the very essence of thought ; these comparisons may take many 
different hnes, — they may deal with the streets, the dwellings, the 
means of travel and communication, the conveniences of life, 
such as water-supply, sewerage, street lighting, and preservation 
of order ; they may consider the dress, the food, the household 
utensils, the schools, and the occupations of the people. Such a 
comparison, made with reference to Salem, is of much wider 
application, and should serve immensely to help the young of to- 
day to realize the manners of life among their ancestors. Thus 
they would understand, as they never would understand other- 
wise, the vast differences which a century has made. We can 
do this only by putting ourselves into the places of our predeces- 
sors, — then we know and appreciate the motives by which they 
were influenced and comprehend the identity and consistency of 
the universal mind. 

For another illustration of the same kind, — compare the life 
of a Puritan boy with the life of a boy of to-day. For a broader 
and more difficult problem, compare Virginia and Massachusetts 
life of the seventeenth century. The ever present "Why?" and 
the insistence upon a reason, however crude it may be and how- 
ever imperfectly considered, for the answers given would empha- 
size to the minds of the pupils the fact that, from this point of 
view, history is a real thought-study, — that is, a study which gives 
the materials for thought, and not merely one which stimulates 
the verbal memory. 

These problems deal with ideas of things that are largely 
concrete. Others, more general and abstract, should find places. 
For example, — 

Why did Salem lose that commercial supremacy which she 
once held? 

We honor the name and memory of Nathan Hale — is not 
Major Andre entitled to equal honor? If not, why not? 



12 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

What circumstances, if any, justified the early settlers in not 
allowing that religious liberty upon which we pride ourselves? 

Why did the Northern states so easily give up the holding of 
slaves ? 

Why did the French succeed so much better than the Eng- 
lish in securing and holding the friendship of the Indians ? 

How did the colton-gin strengthen the hold of the institution 
of slavery upon the industrial and financial interests of the 
country? 

Why was the fall of Quebec in 1759 ^ ^^U iiTiportant event? 

The reasons for and against the expulsion of the Acadians 
by the English. 

The arguments of the Tories against the American Revo- 
lution. 

It is far from the present purpose to degrade or belittle the pos- 
session of mere intelligence in regard to history, — especially the his- 
tory of one's own country. Simply to know something of events, 
and even something of dates, apart from their higher aspects, is an 
achievement of conventional value not to be despised. There 
are instances of ignorance not to be pardoned, and certain events 
and dates are doubtless to be classed among them. But it is to 
be observed that such achievements are only the elements of his- 
torical knowledge, and that, if the higher purposes are faithfully 
served, the lower will of necessity be attained- For one cannot 
think and reason upon things unless he is furnished with the knowl- 
edge of them. The contention is that both teachers and pupils 
are often too easily satisfied with the lower and too readily per- 
suaded to neglect the higher. 

In such study as has been imperfectly and briefly indicated, 
there are, it is believed, the possibilities of great usefulness from 
the standpoint of mental growth, — to say nothing of its value in 
the inculcation of intelligent and reasonable patriotism and of in- 
clusive and broadening human sympathy. Some of the particu- 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 3 

lars in which such study has specific educational value may 
properly be indicated. 

In the first place, the power of reasoning is directly promoted. 
And the particular variety of reasoning which is developed is of the 
utmost practical value. There are two kinds of certainty given 
us by reasoning, — designated in logic as mathematical and practi- 
tical. In mathematical reasoning we start with hypothetical 
premises and arrive at an absolutely perfect demonstration of cer- 
tain conclusions. Such are the conditions and the results of the 
pure mathematics, but the conditions with which the pure mathe- 
matics start, and the results at which they arrive are not the con- 
ditions and the results of ordinary human experience. It may well be 
doubted whether skill in carrying on such processes necessarily 
prepares men to meet the problems of actual life. Rather, 
instead, in actual life, it is the problems whose conditions can 
be only imperfectly or approximately detei mined that are encoun- 
tered, and the utmost to be expected as the result of reasoning 
processes, is probable or practical certainty. These are pre- 
cisely the problems with which history deals, and the child or 
youth who is encouraged to weigh the reasons for and against such 
an historical event as the expulsion of Roger Williams or the an- 
nexation of Texas is being trained to exactly such processes as 
will be useful to him in his future life. A greater or less degree 
of practical certainty is all that anybody can hope to reach when, 
at some crisis, more or less important, he is compelled to make 
a choice between two different courses of action. In forming 
opinions upon current events, and even in the administration of 
justice, absolute mathematical certainty is impracticable of attain- 
ment. To a right estimate of the balance of favorable and adverse 
considerations and the consequent ability to decide which pre- 
ponderates, such a study of history as has been described cannot 
fail directly to contribute. 

Secondly, there is no better means of promoting, in a ration- 



14 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

al and natural manner, the exercise of the imagination. This will 
be the case whether we regard the imagination from that point of 
view which makes it the efficient helper of the memory by fixing 
clearly and vividly in the mind the products of sense-perception, 
and of forming accurate and well-defined images from the oral or 
written language of others, or whether we consider it in its creative 
or original power as the ability to form new products from the 
materials already existing in the imind. 

The imagination is stimulated in the acts first mentioned 
when the objects used by other generations or other peoples, in 
our own or other times, are presented to the senses. Here is an 
objective aid in the work of historical study which is seldom used 
as it might be used. Yet, upon its efficacy depends the justifica- 
tion and the value of collections of antiquities and the contempo- 
rary properties which have played their part for others than our- 
selves, of maps, pictures, historical memorials like buildings, 
statues and tablets, of our visitations to the scenes of great events, 
of our efforts to put ourselves and our pupils in the places of those 
who have acted parts in the great drama of human life. Just in 
proportion as we see these objects and these places with the eye 
of a clear and intelligent imagination do they perform their office ; 
and, in this as in other respects, power is increased by the appro- 
priate exercise of the mental faculties. Then, how often we fail 
in our reading or in our listening because we are unable to image 
to ourselves what is set forth by voice or printed page. It is not 
alone to the ability to understand what is embraced in a narrative 
that the cultivation of this power extends. Our appreciation and 
enjoyment of art in every variety, — of form, of color, of propor- 
tion, of sound, of language, — are dependent upon our abilty to 
exercise, along with sense-perception, the imaging power. 

If this advantage accrues to imagination in its receptive sense 
from historical study, how much more is it true that the same for- 
tunate result follows when we consider its power of original pro- 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 5 

duction, — in the shape of new combinations of materials already 
existing in the mind, of exaggerating or minimizing those elments, 
or of modifying as we will the spiritual qualities of man. To the 
statesman, intent upon the organization of a new nation or of the 
formulation of an important policy, and to the humble, patriotic 
citizen, eager to form for himself the true ideal of his conduct in its 
relations to his country, what can be more necessary, more useful 
more sympathetic and helpful, than the rational study of history? 
"Of the universal mind," says Emerson, " each individual man is 
one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each 
new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great 
bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refers to nation- 
al crises." 

It would be unfortunate to leave even by silence, any justifi- 
cation for the inference that this discussion of the methods and 
value of historical study concerns only school work. The work 
of the school is not an end in itself. It should be so planned 
and carried out as to connect as closely and efficiently as possible 
with subsequent activity. So far as possible the motives of that 
period should be such as may be carried over into the experiences 
of what is called " life." School is a phase of life, — not merely 
a " preparation for life." It is a great misfortune for a child to 
feel that when he leaves school he must begin to accept, suddenly 
and for the first time, his legitimate responsibilities. The feeling 
of responsibility should be a gradual growth ; if this view is accept- 
ed, that unnatural attitude towards school and teachers which is 
too often observed would be, in a large degree, avoided. If the 
child and his parents, as well as the teacher, realize that school is 
for the pupil, that it is to the pupil a part of his real life, the gains 
would be great and the relations between the school and the home 
would be vastly improved. 

The view of the value and the methods of historical study 
which has been set forth would contribute in a large degree to the 



r6 THE STUDY OF HISTORY. 

promotion of a rational and reasonable relation of the two impor- 
tant parties concerned in the problem of education. The youth, 
whose study of history has been of such a kind as to give him a 
right attitude towards his future reading, would find, on leaving 
school, such a result to be of high practical value. That reading 
should be a part of one's search after truth, — the highest and 
noblest employment of the human mind. To divest one's self of 
an unfounded prejudice, to be guided by an earnest and candid 
petty desire to learn what is really true of the past, to feel keenly 
the desire to be guided by the lessons of the world's actual experi- 
ence, to determine to know and to admit the fair balance of testi- 
mony as to the facts and the merits of disputed questions, — are not 
these results highly desirable for very many reasons, and would 
they not contribute most powerfully to the furtherance of such a 
spirit of candor and of high thinking as would become the citizens 
of a free country? 

The schools can do much, and they ought to do much to 
promote such ends. They can render no greater service to the 
future generations. But they can only set the feet of the pupils 
in the right road, and unless the lessons are so thoroughly taught 
that in after life, the kind of reading or study they have pro- 
moted is continued, their efforts will have been made largely in 
vain. To read history in or out of school merely for the tempo- 
rary excitement of the story, or with such preconceived opinions 
or feelings regarding any historical events as to close one's mind 
to the full evidence concerning them, is to destroy its value as a 
guide to human conduct. The attentive mind is not more essen- 
tial than the open mind ; intense application is less valuable than 
genuine candor, — it is only through a co-ordination of the two 
elements that the result will be of the kind which will in reality 
make the past the servant and the lamp of the future. 



APR 4 1904 



liS'' '''' CONGRESS 
018 485 024 2 " ^ 



